The Plan & How It Works

What if you didn’t have to do the hard work of figuring out what to eat to lose weight or simply eat better?

Thrive does much of that for you.   

Many nutrition and weight-loss programs give you an app, tracking tools, meal-planning tools and a large library of recipes — but you may still spend considerable time managing the process.

Depending on the program, that can mean:

Depending on the program, that can mean:

• Decide what to eat and how much
• Choosing or adjusting meals and recipes
• Keeping track of whether your day is balanced
• Logging what you eat into an app

Many tracking apps use large food databases that include foods added by users. You may find duplicate entries for the same food with different nutritional information, leaving you to figure out which one is correct.

Day after day, week after week, month after month. It becomes exhausting.

If your goal is to lose weight and keep it off or simply to learn a healthy way of eating, Thrive does much of the heavy lifting for you so working to achieve your goal doesn’t become another full-time job. The nutritional planning and daily organization are done for you.

You’re not left to build the plan — the plan is built for you. 

Thrive takes important nutritional targets — including calories, protein, fiber and calcium — and turns them into real-world meals, practical portions and complete days of eating. You won't have to search for recipes because they're included with the plan.

Thrive gives you structure when you need it most, then helps you use what you've learned with greater flexibility over time. The goal is to give you a strong foundation, then help balanced, healthy eating become a way of life.

• No required app
• No points
• No daily food logging
• No monthly or annual subscription
• Thrive is a one-time purchase — the plan is yours to keep and use whenever you need it

You can simply open Thrive, digital or print, and begin.

What you get with Thrive →

Thrive is a structured, practical approach to healthy eating built around balanced nutrition, consistent meals, portion awareness, and long-term sustainability.

Instead of giving you nutrition goals and leaving you to figure out how to meet them, Thrive puts much of that work together for you — with nutritionally balanced meals, recipes, shopping lists, prep guidance, planned leftovers, and practical strategies for restaurants and takeout.

The result is an approach designed to work in everyday life — providing enough structure to make healthy eating simpler while allowing for greater flexibility as the Thrive Structure becomes familiar.

Thrive can support you through weight loss, Stabilizing, Maintenance, or simply help you build healthier eating habits for the long term.

Thrive may be a good fit for you if you:

• Are tired of starting over: You've lost weight before, regained it, and want a more sustainable way forward.

• Want less figuring out:You'd rather have practical guidance than continually plan, calculate, track, and organize everything yourself.

• Want structure without rigidity: You like knowing what to do but still want room for everyday life.

• Want healthy eating to feel simpler: You're looking for an organized routine that can become easier and more familiar over time.

• Want real life included:Restaurants, takeout, travel, celebrations, and family meals are part of your life — and you want an approach that recognizes that.

• Care about balanced nutrition:You want more than a calorie target. You want meals built around a thoughtful nutritional framework.

• Are thinking beyond weight loss: You want to know not only how to lose weight, but what to do afterward — through Stabilizing, Maintenance, and long-term healthy eating.

• Simply want to eat healthier: Weight loss doesn't have to be your goal. The same Thrive Structure can be used to support balanced, consistent eating.

Thrive isn't a crash diet, a quick fix, or an all-or-nothing approach to eating.

It isn't built around food bans, complicated points systems, constant calorie tracking, calculating nutrition numbers, or the expectation that you'll eat perfectly every day.

The nutritional planning is already built into the meals, so you don't have to calculate it yourself.

And it isn't a temporary plan that ends without showing you what comes next.

Thrive is designed to help healthy eating become simpler, more familiar, and easier to continue — in the life you actually live.

The Thrive 8-Week Meal Plan takes much of the daily thinking off your plate — not because you're meant to follow a written meal plan forever, but because structure makes healthy eating easier to learn.

For eight weeks, much of the planning has already been done for you. You follow the meals, become familiar with the portions and rhythms of the plan, and experience what balanced eating looks like in everyday practice.

• Your Meals Are Planned: Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are already selected and nutritionally balanced within the Thrive framework — including room for a small evening treat.

• Cook Just Two Dinners Most Weeks: Most weeks include two dinners you'll cook, with an occasional third. Each is planned to provide leftovers for another two to three dinners during the week, and one evening is set aside for eating out or takeout. You decide when cooking works best for your schedule — including preparing a meal ahead on a day off.

• Breakfasts & Lunches Are Kept Simple: Some are quick, put-together meals; others involve simple cooking or recipes that can be prepared ahead and enjoyed for several days. If there's a meal you truly don't enjoy, you can occasionally substitute another Thrive meal from the same category. Over time, you'll likely discover a few favorites that make busy days especially easy.

• Prep Guidance Is Built In: Clear weekly guidance shows you what to prepare ahead of time and what you'll need for the days ahead.

• Shopping Lists Are Ready for You: Weekly shopping lists are organized around the meals you'll actually be eating, taking another piece of planning off your plate.

• Real Life Is Part of the Plan: Restaurants and takeout are intentionally included in the Thrive Structure. Your plan includes the comprehensive Restaurant & Eating Out Guide, with practical guidance for choosing meals, navigating different types of restaurants and cuisines, making simple swaps, managing portions, and enjoying eating out while continuing to support your goals.

And while you're following the plan, something important begins to happen.

The portions and rhythm of your meals become familiar. You begin to see how balanced meals come together, which breakfasts and lunches work especially well for your life, how shopping and prep can be simplified, how planned leftovers make dinner easier, and how restaurants and takeout can fit into everyday life.

What began as a plan you were following begins to become a way of eating you understand.

The 8-Week Meal Plan gives you a place to begin — but it doesn't limit you to the same meals forever.

That's where the Thrive — All Meals & Recipes workbook becomes so important.

All Meals & Recipes gives you a collection of Thrive breakfasts, lunches, dinners, recipes, Sparkling Drinks, Teas & Mocktails, and Evening Treats & Desserts — all designed to work within the same Thrive framework.

And if you love the 8-Week Meal Plan, you can keep using it. If you appreciate having your meals already planned, there's no reason to give up that convenience simply because you've completed your first eight weeks. You can follow a week as written or use it as your foundation while occasionally swapping a breakfast, lunch, or dinner from the All Meals & Recipes workbook. Your shopping and prep can remain largely intact, with adjustments where needed.

During Stabilizing and Maintenance, you can return to the written plan whenever you like, adding nutritious foods and portions as needed to reach the calorie level that supports your current goals.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. The 8-Week Meal Plan can remain a framework you return to, adapt, and make your own as you become more comfortable using the Thrive Structure in everyday life.

The structure is still there.

But now you know how to use it.

The meal plan gives you the structure to learn.
The system gives you the flexibility to live.

See How the Plan Works ↓

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Thrive is a Mediterranean-inspired approach to healthy eating built around balanced nutrition, consistent meals, realistic portions, and everyday foods.

Rather than focusing on rigid rules or constant tracking, Thrive provides a practical structure that helps make healthy eating simpler and more consistent. Meals, shopping, prep, restaurants and takeout, Stabilizing, and Maintenance all work within the same overall framework.

The goal isn't perfection. It's creating a way of eating you can comfortably continue for the long term.

• Supportive, Not Stressful: Healthy eating should support your life — not become an all-consuming project.

• Real Food & Realistic Portions: Thrive emphasizes satisfying, familiar foods and practical portions rather than deprivation or extreme restrictions.

• Balanced Nutrition Matters: Thrive meals are thoughtfully designed around protein, fiber, healthy fats, calcium, and overall nutritional balance — so good nutrition is built into the structure rather than left for you to continually calculate on your own.

• Consistency Matters More Than Perfection: You won't make the ideal choice at every meal — and you don't need to. A celebration, vacation, restaurant meal, or occasional indulgence doesn't undo your progress. There's no need for guilt, giving up, or waiting until Monday to “start over.” Simply return to your usual Thrive routine with your next meal. One choice doesn't have to become a pattern.

• Eating Out Is Part of Real Life: Restaurants, takeout, travel, and celebrations have a place within the Thrive Structure. Healthy eating shouldn't require putting your life on hold.

• Structure Can Create Flexibility: Structure is especially valuable while you're learning. As portions, meals, and routines become more natural, you can begin using what you've learned with greater confidence and flexibility.

• Weight Loss Isn't the Finish Line: Thrive includes Stabilizing and Maintenance because reaching a goal weight is only part of the journey. Knowing how to continue matters, too.

• Healthy Eating Should Be Sustainable: The ultimate goal is a balanced way of eating that fits naturally into everyday life and can be continued for the long term.

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If weight loss is your goal, Thrive follows a simple, repeatable path designed to help you lose weight, stabilize your progress, and transition into long-term Maintenance.

8-Week Plan → Stabilize → Repeat to Goal → Maintain

If you have more weight to lose after Stabilizing, you simply repeat the 8-Week Plan and Stabilizing phase until you reach your goal. Then you transition into Maintenance using the same Thrive Structure you've already learned.

Your first eight weeks provide the structure for learning the Thrive approach through consistent, balanced meals and practical routines.

Every day is already planned for you, with meals designed to provide approximately 1,250–1,350 calories, 90+ grams of protein, 25+ grams of fiber, and approximately 1,200 mg of calcium.

These amounts provide the foundation of the plan, but individual needs vary. Some people may need additional nutritious foods or larger portions to support their bodies and goals while following the Thrive Structure.

You simply follow the plan while becoming familiar with the portions, meal patterns, recipes, shopping, prep, leftovers, and real-life strategies built into Thrive.

And you still have some flexibility. If there's a meal you truly don't enjoy, you can occasionally substitute another Thrive meal from the same category using the Thrive — All Meals & Recipes workbook, while continuing to follow the overall Thrive Structure.

After completing the 8-Week Plan, you move into a 30-day Stabilizing phase.

During Stabilizing, calories are gradually increased while you continue using the Thrive Structure. You can continue using the 8-Week Meal Plan as your foundation and add nutritious foods and portions as you determine the calorie level that maintains your progress, or use the All Meals & Recipes workbook for greater variety and flexibility. Over these 30 days, the goal is to settle into a level of eating that keeps you within approximately 3 pounds of your current weight before deciding what comes next. If you still have weight to lose after Stabilizing, return to the 8-Week Plan and repeat the cycle.

8 Weeks → Stabilize → 8 Weeks → Stabilize

Continue until you reach the weight that is right for you.

Once you reach your goal, you transition into long-term Maintenance.

By now, the Thrive Structure is familiar. You aren't learning an entirely new system for Maintenance — you're continuing to use what you've already learned in the way that works best for you.

If you enjoy the convenience and structure of the 8-Week Meal Plan, you can continue using it or return to it anytime, adding nutritious foods and portions to meet your Maintenance needs. Or you can use All Meals & Recipes to choose meals and build your own days within the Thrive Structure. You may find yourself doing a little of both.

The 3-Pound Rule provides a simple guardrail. If your weight moves more than 3 pounds above your established Maintenance weight, return to the written 8-Week Meal Plan for one week. Then return to your usual Maintenance approach.

The purpose isn't perfection or keeping your weight at one exact number every day. It's having a clear structure you know how to return to when you need it.

The same Thrive Structure you learn while losing weight becomes the foundation for maintaining what you've achieved.

You don't have to be trying to lose weight to use Thrive.

The same balanced meals, practical portions, shopping and prep routines, recipes, and real-life strategies can provide structure for anyone who simply wants to eat healthier and build more consistent habits.

Weight loss may be one path through Thrive. Healthy eating is the foundation of all of them.

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Everything in Thrive is designed to work together. Each workbook has a different purpose, taking you from understanding the system, to following it, to using it with greater flexibility over time.

Your introduction to the Thrive system.

Start Here explains the philosophy and structure behind Thrive, what to expect, how the different phases work, and how to prepare before beginning your first eight weeks.

It's where you learn the why behind what you'll be doing — so when you begin the plan, you're ready to simply get started.

It also includes a Quick Start Guide for anyone who wants the essential information needed to begin Week 1 right away, with the rest of Start Here available when you’re ready for a deeper understanding of the system. 

Your structure for putting Thrive into practice.

The 8-Week Meal Plan provides eight weeks of organized meals, recipes, shopping lists, prep guidance, Meals at a Glance, Kitchen Staples, and weekly resources designed to help you establish consistent, sustainable eating habits.

This is where Thrive becomes your everyday plan.

Instead of deciding what to eat each day and then trying to make everything work nutritionally, you have a complete plan to follow while you learn the Thrive Structure through everyday use.

Your flexibility for the long term.

All Meals & Recipes brings Thrive breakfasts, lunches, dinners, recipes, Sparkling Drinks, Teas & Mocktails, and Evening Treats & Desserts together in one place.

Use it for occasional Meal Swaps while following the 8-Week Meal Plan, and for greater flexibility during Stabilizing, Maintenance, and long-term healthy eating.

As you gain experience using the Thrive Structure, All Meals & Recipes gives you the ability to choose from the meals you enjoy and begin creating days that work for you — while continuing to follow the framework you've learned.

This is how Thrive grows with you: structure when you need it, flexibility as you learn it.

Because eating out is part of real life, Thrive also includes practical guidance for restaurants, takeout, travel, celebrations, and a variety of cuisines.

The Restaurant & Eating Out Guide helps you make choices that fit within the Thrive Structure without treating a meal away from home as something that has gone “off plan.”

You'll learn much more about eating out with Thrive farther down this page.

Thrive is designed so you can use the system independently, but additional learning and support are available when you want them.

Online Courses

Thrive online courses provide additional education and guidance in healthy eating, nutrition, weight management, and lifestyle improvement.

Online Workshops

Thrive workshops offer opportunities to learn, participate, and put Thrive principles into practice in a more interactive setting.

Group Zoom Sessions

Group Zoom sessions provide additional support, discussion, questions and answers, and opportunities to connect with others using Thrive.

See Upcoming Courses & Workshops →

Thrive is designed to be easy to use in the format you prefer.

Digital Edition: Interactive PDF workbooks that can be used on your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Print Edition: If you prefer physical workbooks you can hold, mark, and keep in your kitchen, a printed option will also be available.

Thrive is designed to be used independently through the workbooks and supporting resources, with continued support available through Thrive online courses, workshops, and group Zoom sessions.

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Healthy eating doesn't have to mean complicated meals, unusual foods, or spending your day in the kitchen.

A typical day on Thrive is built around everyday foods, balanced meals, realistic portions, and the same practical structure you've been learning throughout the program.

Protein Pancakes + Eggs + Chicken Sausage + Berries

A satisfying breakfast built around protein, whole foods, and fruit.

Chicken Salad Wrap + Fresh Fruit

Simple enough for a workday or busy afternoon, with very little preparation required.

Baked Spaghetti + Dinner Salad or Vegetables + Evening Calcium

A comforting, familiar dinner that can be prepared ahead and enjoyed again as planned leftovers.

1,334 calories | 93 g protein | 27 g fiber | 1,214 mg calcium

Those aren't numbers you had to calculate as you went. The meals were designed to work together within the Thrive nutritional framework, so balanced nutrition is already built into your day.

Thrive isn't built around the idea that healthy eating requires giving up everything you enjoy.

Your day can include a small evening treat as part of the overall Thrive Structure.

One day. Three balanced meals and a little treat. Familiar foods. No daily calorie tracking required.

The planning and nutritional framework are already in place — leaving you free to eat, enjoy your meals, and get on with your day.

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Healthy eating shouldn't require staying home.

Restaurants, takeout, celebrations, vacations, and meals with family and friends are part of everyday life — so they're part of Thrive, too.

But eating out isn't intended to replace the healthy meals you prepare at home. Home-prepared meals remain the foundation of Thrive and long-term healthy eating.

Eating out can be a treat, an enjoyable part of your social life, or simply a welcome break from cooking on a busy day. Rather than treating those meals as something that takes you “off plan,” Thrive helps you learn how to make thoughtful choices while still enjoying the experience.

Restaurant and takeout meals are intentionally built into every week of the 8-Week Meal Plan. You may have a breakfast out, a takeout lunch, and a restaurant or takeout dinner during the same week — and sometimes leftovers from those meals become another meal.

That's intentional.

Healthy eating also has to work when you're busy, tired, traveling, celebrating, spending time with family and friends, or simply ready for a break from the kitchen. That's why restaurant and takeout meals have an intentional place within the 8-Week Plan.

During the first eight weeks, your restaurant and takeout meals are already selected for you as part of the plan. Whenever possible, simply follow those choices.

If you don't have access to a particular restaurant or truly don't care for the meal that's planned, your Restaurant & Eating Out Guide can help you find a reasonable alternative. The goal is to choose something as close as possible to the meal you're replacing, so you can make the substitution without losing the overall structure of the day.

The Guide goes well beyond general advice about eating out.

Your Restaurant & Eating Out Guide is provided digitally, so you can keep it with you and access it whenever you need it — whether you're deciding where to eat, looking over a menu, picking up takeout, traveling, or simply wanting a little guidance before you order.

The idea for this guide began on a road trip with my husband. I had recently started Thrive, and as we looked for somewhere to eat, I found myself wishing I had a simple guide to help me know what to order. While my husband drove, I started making notes on my phone about restaurants and meal choices. By the time we got home, the idea for the Restaurant & Eating Out Guide had been born.

You'll find sections covering:

• Burgers
• Sandwiches and subs
• Pizza
• Chicken
• Mexican
• Asian restaurant
• Sit-down favorites
• Coffee shops
• Global cuisines
• Breakfast & Brunch
• Takeout

And more.

Within those sections, you'll find practical help with:

• Choosing balanced meals
• Managing portions
• Navigating sides and sauces
• Making simple substitutions and swaps
• Recognizing choices that work comfortably within the Thrive approach

It's designed to help with the situations that actually come up in life — whether you're:

• Grabbing takeout after a long day
• Meeting friends for dinner
• Celebrating with family
• Staying in a hotel
• Traveling

Or simply looking at a menu and wondering, What should I order?

And as you gain experience with Thrive portions and meal balance, something else begins to happen: you start recognizing those choices for yourself.

You won't always have a perfectly measured meal or know the exact nutrition information — and you don't need to.

Over time, you learn to:

• Look at what's available
• Recognize the basics of a balanced meal
• Make adjustments when they're useful
• Choose a reasonable portion
• Enjoy what you've chosen

The Guide remains there whenever you want it. But the knowledge you're gaining through Thrive begins to travel with you.

Make a thoughtful choice. Enjoy your meal. Then continue with your normal routine.

Eating out isn't a departure from healthy eating. 

It's part of learning how to make healthy eating work in real life.

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Before Thrive, I had spent  more than four decades trying to lose weight — and, just as importantly, maintain what I lost.

At one point, I had about 80 pounds to lose.

Over the years, I tried one approach after another. Sometimes I would lose 10 pounds or so, but it often required so much deprivation or became so difficult to sustain that eventually I couldn't keep doing it. Gradually, the weight would come back — sometimes with a little more.

About 40 pounds did come off during those years, but not because I had finally found a way of eating that worked. I became seriously ill in the 1990s and spent four years recovering.

When I eventually created Thrive, I still had 37 pounds I wanted to lose.

That meant that after  more than four decades of dieting and trying so many different approaches, outside of the weight I had lost while I was sick, I had managed to lose and maintain only about three pounds.

It was hard not to feel frustrated and wonder what I was missing.

The last program I followed required me to track everything I ate in an app. I was given a daily calorie target, but I was still responsible for figuring out what to eat and how to get the nutrition I needed within those calories.

And as I lost weight, my calorie allowance became even smaller. Eventually, I was down to about 1,150 calories a day.

I didn't feel satisfied, and I didn't feel as though I was eating in a nutritionally balanced way.

Was I getting enough protein? Enough fiber? Enough calcium? What should I make for dinner? What should I buy? What could I order at a restaurant? And what would happen when I eventually stopped tracking?

Looking back, I came to understand that the number of calories was only part of the problem. There is a tremendous difference between simply staying within a calorie range and building that calorie range around balanced, satisfying meals that provide the nutrition your body needs.

I spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure it all out.

I logged everything I ate, and because much of the nutrition information in the app had been entered by users and wasn't always accurate, I often found myself looking up and verifying nutrition information elsewhere. There were daily lessons to work through, too, but I still didn't have the practical guidance I needed for meal planning, shopping, cooking efficiently, or eating out.

I was spending a tremendous amount of time managing the program while still having to do much of the nutritional planning myself.

I managed it for about two years. But then my husband became seriously ill, and my attention needed to be somewhere else. I couldn't continue devoting that much time every day to managing what I ate.

Without the constant calculating and tracking, I gradually regained the 20 pounds I had lost.

That experience finally helped me see what I believed had been missing.

I didn't need another calorie target without a practical way to build balanced nutrition into the way I ate. And I didn't need another system that worked only while I could give it that much attention.

I needed a way of eating I could actually live with.

I began thinking about what I would need to make that possible.

I wanted balanced meals I could actually enjoy, with the nutrition already thought through. I wanted shopping lists that matched what I was going to eat and prep guidance that made the week easier.

I wanted to cook dinner a couple of times a week instead of every night, with leftovers planned for me. I wanted simple breakfasts and lunches. I wanted restaurants and takeout to be part of real life rather than something I had to work around.

I wanted to know what happened afterweight loss.

And most importantly, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life following someone else's menu or entering everything I ate into an app.

I wanted to learn a way of eating I could eventually use for myself.

So, after one frustration too many, I decided to build what I hadn't been able to find.

That became Thrive.

Creating Thrive brought together skills and experiences from many different parts of my life — a professional background in legal work, journalism, research and advocacy; years of coaching and working with children and families; a long-standing interest in nutrition; and decades of my own experience trying to manage weight and eat well.

What began as an idea for a simple meal plan gradually became something much more complete.

• The meals needed recipes.

• The meals and recipes needed accurate portions and nutritional standards.

• The weeks needed coordinated shopping lists and prep guidance.

• Dinner needed planned leftovers so healthy eating didn't mean cooking every night.

• Real life needed restaurant and takeout guidance.

• Weight loss needed a transition into Stabilizing.

• And reaching a goal needed a plan for Maintenance.

Piece by piece, Thrive became the system I had been looking for all along.

I didn't create Thrive as a theoretical program and then hand it to someone else to try.

I followed it myself.

I cooked the meals. I used the shopping lists and prep guidance. I ate the leftovers. I went to restaurants. I lived through busy days and ordinary days with Thrive.

And then things began happening that I hadn't expected.

For years, I had lived with chronic pain in my arms. About a week after I began Thrive, I realized the pain was gone.

That was profound for me.

My energy improved, too. I felt stronger. Other people began noticing a difference in me.

Meanwhile, I was losing weight steadily. I lost 20 pounds in about 3½ months, averaging roughly 1 to 2 pounds per week.

After so many years of struggling to lose relatively small amounts of weight — often through considerable deprivation — the experience was completely different from what I had known before.

But the number on the scale wasn't the only thing that mattered.

I felt different.

For the first time, I wasn't focused only on how little I could eat. I was paying attention to how well I was eating — building balanced nutrition into my meals and consistently giving my body the protein, fiber, calcium, and other nutritious foods I had worked so carefully to include in Thrive.

Over time, that changed much more than my weight.

Today, at 70, I feel stronger, healthier, and more energetic than I remember feeling at 30 — or at any point in the decades between.

It's simply what happened to me. And it profoundly changed the way I think about food, nutrition, and what it means to eat well.

There was another difference that mattered enormously:

I knew how I wanted to eat afterward.

I wasn't waiting for the diet to end so I could go back to “normal.”

Thrive had become my normal.

I went on to maintain that 20-pound loss for over a full year, using the same basic structure with greater flexibility. During Maintenance, I found that I could eat considerably more than I had while losing weight — at times around 1,800 calories a day — while continuing to maintain my weight.

After decades of feeling as though controlling my weight depended on continually eating less, that was remarkable to me.

And after proving to myself that I could maintain what I had lost, I was ready to finish what I had started.

I still had 17 pounds to lose. This time, I didn't have to search for another diet or wonder what to try next.

I already knew what to do.

I returned to Thrive — and lost those final 17 pounds using the same system that had already taught me how to lose weight, maintain what I'd lost, and continue eating well afterward.

That's what I had been missing all those years.

Not another temporary diet.

A way to lose weight, nourish my body well, learn a different way to eat, and know what to do next.

And that's what I hope Thrive can give you, too.

— Isabelle

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